If I showed you a picture of how I think about a topic I teach it would be orderly and organised. It would probably also appear overwhelming and complicated if you were not an expert in this domain. (If you’re interested you can see the most epic of these, my ‘macro map’).
If I was going to teach you about this topic, I would gradually reveal elements of the picture to you, until you could see and appreciate the entirety of the big picture that I can see. I am trying to get you to a point where you can think independently like an expert. You will have the network that I have, so you can make the links I can make too, and then you’ll likely even make some I would miss.
This is frequently how I go about teaching my students. I will reveal, often graphically, very small and carefully sequenced pieces of my thinking, very gradually and over time, before eventually revealing the entire picture. The steps are small and the journey is leisurely, but long. You will get there, assuming you stick with me. That might require a bit of resilience and effort on your part.
But is this actually the best way?
I’ve been fascinated recently to witness the different reactions to my various ‘schema representations’ from my own existing students (who I have taught since the start of their A level course) compared to the reactions of the new students I have only recently encountered and taught in my role as a revision tutor.
Many of my original students have dutifully followed along with my thinking and have developed a good level of expertise. But they don’t know any different. I have been their only economics teacher, so they just think this is what economics is and this is how you learn it. Some of my own students though view my efforts to visually communicate my complex schema as a grind for them! “Oh, Miss, this map, there’s SO many factors, there’s SO much to learn… etc etc etc”.
Yet if I present this map to a new student who has not been taught in this way, and show them how to use it, I am met with a mixture of gratitude and relief.
“Oh… Miss… this is SO useful… Oh, I wish someone had given me this months ago”.
The scrambled muddle of content they had been trying to wrangle into orderly essay answers now appears organised, understandable, manageable and useful.
It makes sense.
And what’s more, they are now highly incentivised to go about learning it, as they appreciate the value.
But who now performs better in the end? Who has learned more? Does satisfaction in the feeling of relief from the unorganised mess mean motivation and performance is now going to be better for the new students than those who’ve taken a slower journey with me and ‘known this all along’?
Is a struggle in the dark that ends in a lightbulb moment better than slow, gradual (even boring?) transition from darkness to light.
I don’t know. But I feel the question is interesting and important.
I am especially interested in the motivational impact. I wonder if a curriculum that is logical, efficient and seemingly sensible can fall apart on implementation because it ends up feeling dull. It’s so orderly, that’s it’s boring.
Should an expert reveal their schema gradually? Or is a level of struggle, confusion and muddle a ‘desirable difficulty’? Should an expert should hold back their expertise until such time as it will be recognised and appreciated, and that revelation will deliver a motivational buzz of satisfaction?
Discuss!
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